St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-11-22
GRAVEYARD INSURANCE.


themselves from graveyard insurance
companies is a dead failure. Tie laws
passed by the legislature relating to life
Insurance are 10 protection: that is, IL
the construction placed upon these laws
bv Commissioner SHANDREw is correct.
1t is but fair to the laws and the leglS-
latures that enacted them to say that
there is a very large-siZed question III
the public mind whether Commissioner
SHANDREw's construction will hold
water. If his explanation in yesterdays
GLOBE of the reasons why he
stands by the Elkhart Old Peoples
Insurance company is the most
tenable ground he occupies, it will not
take the public long to come to the con-
clusion that Mr.. SHANDREw'S knowl-
edge of the duties of an insurance COM
missioner are entirely too limited to
make him serviceable in that Office.
With such case before him as the
editor of Insurance made out against
this particular company it oughtn't to
take a state official long, even in the
absence of all laws, to decide what his
duties in the premises are. The case
stands thus: A prominent insurance
journal in New York asserted that
the Elkhart company was not Or
ganized on a legitimate insurance
basis and should not be licensed
TO do business in any state,
Minnesota being the only state, except
Indiana, where it could obtain license.
The aforesaid insurance journal made
vigorous onslaught on the Minnesota
insurance commissioner for his lax ad-
ministratiGn of his Office. Our commits
sioner defended himself by saying that
there was no legal prohibition to pre-
vent the Elkhart company, or any SINH
lar insurance organization, from doing
business in this state SO long as there
was no evidence of crooked methods in
its business affairs, and evidently think
ing it was no part of an insurance COM
missioner's business to investigate the
private affairs of insurance companies.
Mr.. SHANDREw seems to have been
satisfied to give himself no
further trouble about the matter.
Now that the editor of Insurance fur
nishes him with evidence that the Elk
hart company did issue a policy on a
fictitious application, and that too in a
case where the pretended applicant had
no actual existence, nor was there any
such postoffice in the state of New
Jersey mentioned in the policy as the
home of the applicant, Commissioner
SHANDREW dismisses the matter with
the simple statement that 'any one
could commit fraud and forgery and
secure insurance from the best COM
panies in the world" That is not true.
ANY one cannot secure insurance from
the best companies by fraud and forgery.
A company that will permit any one
to secure insurance by fraud and
forgery ought not to be permitted
to do an insurance business. 1t is only
those companies who are capable of
protecting themselves against fraudu-
lent applications that are considered
reliable. 1t is the business of the i'll
surance agent to know that the appli-
cation is bona fide one. Only unre-
liable companies employ unreliable
agents. If Commissioner SHANDREw
had the first conception of the duties OF
his Office he would never have made
such laundering statement as that.
He not only shows lack of knowledge
of the duties of insurance commissioner,
but by attempting to defend this out
rage, has given a gross insult to
every reliable insurance company doing
business in this state. In the face of
the evidence produced by the New York
journal, we are giving the insurance
commissioner the benefit of the most
charitable construction that can be
placed on his conduct in this matter
when we attribute it all to his ignorance
of official duty.